DALLAS — For one of the most powerful people in collegiate athletics, the beauty of going for a run, even with an Apple Watch strapped to his wrist measuring his progress, is getting lost in the wonder of new cities he’s visited.
In the early morning of July 1, Greg Sankey’s planned 3-and-a-half mile jog around the University of Oklahoma’s campus turned into a 4-and-a-half mile adventure due to his admiration of the Southeastern Conference’s latest addition. The SEC commissioner of nine years, a past avid marathon runner, was getting in a workout before a day that would kick off with a welcome press conference and end with a late-night celebration in a tuxedo on Owen Field.
While he hadn’t visited the college grounds before initial in-person meetings with officials in December 2021, Sankey was familiar with the area.
His sister-in-law lived south of Oklahoma City in the 1990s. His father’s stepfather, who he calls his grandfather, was raised in eastern Oklahoma town Chouteau and was a proud member of the Pipeliners Local Union 978 out of Tulsa. Sankey made the trek from his native upstate New York to Chouteau as a 5-year-old in 1969 to visit his grandfather, an avid New York Yankees fan, though not because the Sankeys lived in New York, but for Mickey Mantle.
Mantle retired one year before Sankey’s visit, capping a career as one of baseball’s greatest for a team that was a blueblood of its sport. Mantle carried the same working class ethic throughout his playing days that was central to OU football’s mantra throughout the next decade under Barry Switzer.
“That meaning is not lost on me personally today,” Sankey said, sitting between university president Joseph Harroz Jr. and athletic director Joe Castiglione, a few hours after his prolonged lope.
Sixteen days later at SEC Media Days in Dallas, one of the most forward-thinking and historic moves in the history of college sports became even more real. Not unlike in 1969 when Mantle retired and Major League Baseball added Kansas City, Montreal, San Diego and Seattle as expansion team, Sankey leads college football’s marquee conference at a time when the sport holds a place in America’s collective consciousness like baseball when he visited Oklahoma as a child.
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Sankey officially introduced OU to the rest of the conference’s orbit. Talking season had begun and the biggest names in the conference like Paul Finebaum and even Nick Saban, who has joined the media ranks as an ESPN analyst, weighed in on their perceptions of the new member.
Though this is the inaugural season for the Sooners, for Sankey it’s almost like they’re entering Year 4. Harroz, Castiglione and head coach Brent Venables have attended SEC meetings for the past year. The league’s expectations have been thoroughly communicated since the realignment announcement.
“From a competitive standpoint, they’ve had three years to prepare,” Sankey told The Oklahoman during a sit-down interview in a side office overlooking downtown Dallas’ skyline away from the chaos of SEC Media Days, “and our 14 and our 16 together have all been prepared for travel and for the competitive experiences.”
During the interview, Sankey discussed various topics regarding collegiate athletics including potential revenue-sharing, name, image and likeness collectives, OU’s proposed new arena, and how the school has been perceived by other members.
Media days in Dallas was an intentional location selected as the conference expands its geographical footprint and the fourth different location in four years for an event that used to be a mainstay in Birmingham, Alabama. It signaled Sankey’s one-year vision for the new members’ integration.
He sees the next five-year stage as perfecting how the league handles scheduling. OU has the fourth-toughest schedule nationally in 2024, according to College Football Network. The Sooners will play the same conference opponents in 2025 with road games against Alabama and Tennessee. The scheduling format for 2026 and beyond has yet to be finalized and Sankey says the league needs to evaluate its approaches in other sports as well.
Castiglione has been the bastion of tradition throughout his tenure in Norman and Sankey is cut from the same cloth. The two leaders have been proactive when change arises without reinventing the model, and Sankey, like he tracks his time on a run, has a 10-year plan for conference evolution.
Sankey is about to enter his 10th year on the job and when asked where he sees the league in the next decade, he returned to the office’s statement, meeting the SEC “standard of excellence,” echoing a similar tone as Castiglione. When Sankey interviewed for his current position, he was asked the same question.
“If we expect our teams to win national championships, we have to perform at that level,” Sankey said. “And we’re not going to win national championships as a conference office staff but the parallels of doing things so well are there. And so that becomes a much greater focus.
“You’ve done the work on a year-to-year basis with specific direct goals and you look at the longer term with maybe broader statements that in 10 years put you in a position to be in a continuing leadership role. Attracting interest from across the globe would be our hope in the long…
The Oklahoman
